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MONTREAL — Author/illustrator Oliver Jeffers has a talent for turning simple ovals, a few dots and stick-like limbs into characters that quickly endear themselves not only to the intended audience of 3- to 7-year-olds, but also to the adults who read his Hueys picture books aloud to that audience.

With just a few lines and the barest of texts, Jeffers has managed to create a series of egg-shaped characters, the Hueys, who tap into the most basic of human emotions, ranging from the desire to appear blameless in a fight (It Wasn’t Me) to the joy of wearing a new sweater that sets one apart from the crowd (The New Jumper). (Australian-born Jeffers lived in Belfast before moving to Brooklyn, hence his use of “jumper” instead of “sweater.”)

None the Number (HarperCollins, 28 pages, $19.99), the third in the Hueys picture-book series, takes on a more instructional tone, posing the chicken-or-egg-type question: If zero is nothing, can it still be a number?

Subtitled A Counting Adventure, the book opens with endpapers that show a Huey (later identified as Frank) clutching a bright-red zero with his tiny pink hand as the numbers one to 10 line up below.

Frank is back on the title page, accompanied by a Huey dressed in blue — both of them counting on their little pink fingers. Turn the page, and Frank’s friend has a question: “How many lumps of cheese do you see just there?” He’s pointing to the adjacent page, where Frank, looking puzzled, is surrounded by white space. “Um,” he replies, “I don’t see any.”

And so it starts. “That’s because there are none,” says his friend. When Frank asks if none is a number, he’s told it is. “It’s one less than one.”

What follows is Jeffers’s version of a preschool counting book, with the numbers one to 10 individually illustrated but given the unique treatment for which this gifted author/illustrator has become known since he first appeared on the children’s-lit scene with How to Catch a Star in 2004. The treatment is not only minimalist, relying on creative use of white space, but also makes rich use of humour and childlike character traits.

The number three, for example, is represented by a collection of chairs, ripe for the counting. But four is illustrated by “how many tantrums Kevin throws every day,” and there we get a uni-browed, glowering Huey dressed in grey, succumbing to a series of outbursts and yelling such things as “I want it NOW” or “It was MY turn” or “STUPID THING” (all in Jeffers’s distinctive hand-lettering). Young listeners are likely to sympathize with Kevin, recognizing his frustration, but they will also be able to count the four distinct images.

The best picture-book illustrators capture not only a child’s interest, but also hold that of the adult reading the book aloud. Jeffers is such an illustrator; he has built a solid fan base of young and old alike. There is a sophistication to his work that appeals to the older crowd, even when he uses the simplest of lines. “Eight party guests trying to guess the gift,” for example, will prove equally funny to the child who quickly figures out the stuffed-bear shape inside the gift wrap and to the adult reading the various guesses: “Ooh … a tennis raquet” or “Perhaps a ball?” or “Socks.”

By the time we’ve covered 10, Frank’s friend points out that it’s “quite a spectacle, when you put it all together,” and Jeffers obliges by filling two pages with numerous items that appeared on the previous pages — and a few that didn’t. “But when you take them all away,” he adds helpfully (leading us to a two-page spread largely empty but for Frank and his friend), “you get NONE.”

Frank, still confused, repeats his original question: “Is none a number?” Chances are, the youngsters to whom you’re reading this book will have the answer by now. But for those who want a more definitive resolution to this book, a note on the inside back cover explains the difference between an integer, natural numbers and counting numbers.

As its title implies, The Numberlys (Moonbot/Atheneum Books, 52 pages, $19.99), by William Joyce and Christina Ellis, also focuses on numbers. But unlike the Jeffers volume, this is not a counting book per se. Instead, it is an elaborate visual treatment of a black-and-white, orderly world of numbers that, thanks to the efforts of five individuals who want more, morphs into a colourful alphabetic environment in which the inhabitants are transformed from automatons to more distinct, joyful creatures.

Opening endpapers depict a series of numbered grey buildings occupied by identical alien-looking creatures dutifully marching in and out of doors — all but one group of five, who are watching the others. Not only are they dressed differently, but their body shapes aren’t the same. Clearly, they’re the odd ones out.

Inside, the story begins: “Once upon a time there was no alphabet. Only numbers.” To read it, the book must be turned on its side, because the images are vertical, stretching over double-page spreads.

In shades of black and grey, they have an industrial, monolithic look to them, and it isn’t until we spot the five individuals from the endpapers that we detect even the slightest bit of warmth in the illustrations. Those five friends have, “for more days than they could count,” wondered if there could be more to their existence. So they separate themselves from the masses and start changing the numbers.

“First it was awful,” we’re told, and the hodgepodge of numbers welded together do look a mess. “Then … artful,” as the five create an A.

Using a variety of industrial equipment, they build a series of letters, culminating in a Z.

“When they came to the lazt letter,” the text reads, “thingz began to happen.” In fact, colour began to happen. And when the five shared the 26 colourful letters with the rest of the populace, the letters came together to form words like “yellow” and “jellybeans” and “Be Happy.” And the creatures were. By the time their day ended, and a series of zzzzz’s descended on the sleepy crowd, the five friends were satisfied. “They had done something new, something different, something more!”

Not quite a counting book, not quite an alphabet book, The Numberlys nevertheless serves as something of a visual feast — but while it’s aimed at 3- to 7-year-olds, I’m inclined to think the true audience is quite a bit older.

The same applies to a new alphabet book by Toronto’s Kellen Hatanaka. Work: An Occupational ABC (Groundwood Books, 40 pages, $16.95) is graphically appealing, but I can’t help wondering how many preschoolers will grasp the significance of words (and occupations) such as aviator, horticulturalist, K-9 officer (for the letter K), naval architect, xenologist and yogi. I myself had to look up xenologist (someone who studies alien life, I think). And V for vibraphonist is bound to throw even a 7-year-old who, like me, might have thought the illustration showed a xylophone player.

Still, who knows? My own kids often proved me wrong, glomming on to words when they were very young that I would have thought were beyond their reach. So this book may very well attract 3- to 7-year-olds.

But the two pages labelled “Want Ads” at the end of the book confirm my suspicions that this book was created more with adults in mind than children. Where I might have expected a glossary of definitions, I instead found a series of tongue-in-cheek descriptive phrases heavy on puns and light on actual descriptions.

“If you’re a nature lover, this job is a walk in the park,” we’re told by way of describing F for forest ranger. P for postal worker? “Postal workers have the kind of job that always delivers!” Y for yogi? “This is a great career for anyone looking for a job with flexibility.” Sigh.

Picture books, at their best, speak to all ages — from the youngest preschooler to the parent reading aloud. But picture books at their worst forget their intended audience, and strive to hold an adult’s interest while aiming way beyond a child’s — or, worse, resort to humour that leaves the child in the dark.

Hatanaka’s digital art for Work is admirable. The text in that two-page Want Ads addendum, not so much.

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